


sara's refusal (drabble)

by Julziebee



Category: Dead Poets Society (1989)
Genre: Angst, Arguing, Drabble, F/M, Fighting, extra scene!!!, takes place almost directly after the wedding :), todd is mentioned!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-10
Updated: 2021-01-10
Packaged: 2021-03-14 03:47:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,414
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28664184
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Julziebee/pseuds/Julziebee
Summary: He tries to talk to her.“...It makes sense. I understand-”“You do not understand.” Wrong thing to say.--This is basically the...residual affects of the wedding! It's an argument between Sara and Neil, so if you don't like yelling and/or the *slightest* bit of physical violence please steer clear!! <3 It's purely plot :)
Relationships: Neil Perry/Original Character
Comments: 2
Kudos: 4





	sara's refusal (drabble)

“I love him,” Neil cries. He’s fallen into himself on the floor, whiskey bottle discarded and forgotten next to him. He’s shoved the base of his palms into his eye sockets and is starting to see little bits of red, green, blue, and yellow. He cries racking sobs that make him look just as pathetic as he feels. Sara stands over him, hair up, arms crossed, heartbroken. 

“I knew.” She bites out. He lets out a shuddering breath, and wipes at his eyes with the back of his sweater. He keeps his head down, though. He doesn’t dare look at her; part of him thinks he can never look at her again. It would honest to God kill him. 

“You knew?” He sniffles out. “When?” He asks, dumbly. She presses her lips together tight and hugs her arms around herself harder. 

“I’ve had a feeling that something wasn’t right with you from the beginning.” She starts. Neil presses his hands to his eyes again, fighting back an angry sob. “You would always talk about him. What Todd was like, how you met Todd, how Todd saved your life. And, yeah, if someone saved my life I would…” She breathes. “I would probably love them too. But...that’s all I thought it was. I hoped that he was just your friend that did a good thing for you so you admired him. Sure. Whatever. But I knew you were _in love with him_ when I heard you say his name. He and Charlie walked through that door, and the way you said his name--” She hiccups, arms uncrossed and hands in fists at her side. She pulls her lower lips into her mouth and squeezes her eyes shut. “You’ve never said my name like that.” 

He risks a glance up. “Sara-”

“Don’t you fucking ‘ _Sara_ ’ me, Neil Perry.” She lets out a quiet sob. “You called for him and I _knew_.” She pauses, then laughs. Neil can hear how raw her throat is, he can feel how sore she is, and how much her chest must hurt, because he feels the same way. “It’s my fault. I knew, and I didn’t do anything about it. I saw the way you looked at him from across the room, like he was the most special thing you’d seen in your entire life, but I also knew you wouldn’t tell him. Because-because I knew you loved me. To some extent, you loved me.”

“I do, I do love y-”

“Not in a way that matters.” She states, dissolving her grief into anger again. “So I held onto it. I thought, well, maybe he will choose me. We’ll be married in a few days, and we’ll go home, together, just the two of us, and he’ll love me and in a few months he’ll only love me. And Todd will be something we can all laugh at, because God damnit, Neil, I get it. He’s an angel. I would love him too if I were you, I fucking understand. So _why_ …” She trails off, and grabs a fistful of her hair and screams. It’s a low, gutteral thing that comes from deep inside her. It’s the dark, shadowy monster with red eyes that’s been hovering over her since Todd stepped into her house. It’s the way she felt that night, click-clacking across the dance floor concerned for her husband. It’s him lying to her immediately after. It’s her, pepper, resting on water in a petri dish, and her life, dish soap, destroying her sense of self and stability and comfort. 

“Why am I so angry?” She says, a breath of a whisper. Neil is frozen on the floor, looking up at her, shock etched around his mouth and above his eyebrows. He doesn’t know if he should respond, or if he should wait for her. He doesn’t know which response will anger her further, and that really says something about how much attention he’d been paying to her for the past couple years. He tries to talk to her.

“...It makes sense. I understand-”

“You do _not_ understand.” Wrong thing to say. 

“We-well, I can try to? Sara, I don’t…I love you. I really do. I--Todd isn’t coming back. I don’t know where he went, so it--doesn’t matter. But you? You’re right here, in front of me. I can still try. I can.” He takes a deep breath and swallows. “I want to.” Sara’s face morphs from solid anger to relentless, undaunted rage. 

“You want to?” She asks, quiet at first. “You _want_ to? If you wanted to try you would have kept your damn mouth shut at _my wedding_ , and you wouldn’t have called for him and declared your love from him in front of my family. In front of your father, who may just skin you alive the next time he visits. And he will visit, you and I both know he has our return address, and he knows where you are. But you wouldn’t have yelled across the room, you would have kept to yourself and danced with me instead of around me. You don’t want to do it for me; you want to do it for you. You want to get rid of this guilt that you’ve ruined my life, that if you just sat quietly beside me and smiled at me every so often I would forgive and forget. I’m not stupid, Neil, I know how you work. I am actually in love with you, Neil, not pretending to be so I can get over a boy-crush from high school who couldn’t even spend my wedding with me as my best man!” She’s crossed the room in two strides, and is knelt down in front of him and yelling in his face. Her anger is hot, and white, and blinding, and she can feel it burning the back of her neck and the tips of her ears. Neil’s mouth is open, and he can’t tell whether he should cry or scream. Instead he reaches forward and takes her by the elbows. She pulls back at first, but then gives in.

“Okay, let’s stand up, okay? Okay--”

“You’re doing it for you. You want to do it for you. You think it’s going to leave me helpless and alone if you leave, heartbroken and unable to get past this shit.” She’s livid. “My parents were so proud. I found a nice boy with a pretty smile, a doctor from Harvard, and to my knowledge that’s all you’d wanted to be. But Todd knew you wanted to act, to be an art student. You didn’t want to follow in your father’s plans. There are so many things he knows about you that I can only dream of, and _fuck_ , why did I even think I could compare?” These words are spoken with no venom, no bark, no energy. She stands, fingernails digging into her palms, almost in his arms, mourning. Neil feels himself start to cry again.

“I’m sorry.” Is all he says. It’s all he can say. Anything else would make it worse, aside from not saying anything at all. 

“I hate you.” She says, and Neil prays she is overcome with anger and doesn’t mean it, but the gnawing voice in his head tells him it’s the honest truth. "I hate you, I hate you, _I hate you_.” With each proclamation, she tenses. “ _I hate you, I hate you, I hate you_.” She rips her arms away from him, and even though he is half a foot taller than she is, he feels smaller. “ _I hate you. I hate you_. I _hate_ you.” Then, she begins to punch at his chest, over and over, every time she says it. Neil is first taken aback, but then brings his arms around her to hug her. “I _hate_ you.” She doesn’t stop pounding her firsts into his chests, but eventually her vision is clouded with tears, and her hits become fewer, weaker. Eventually she collapses, and Neil is there to catch her. 

“I hate you,” She whispers.

“I know,” Neil cries. “Please, let me hold you one more time.”

“I hate you,” She chokes out. Neil releases her from the hug, and walks her upstairs to their room and lays her down on their bed. He grabs an extra blanket from the linen closet and makes her a cup of tea. He places it on her bedside table, and sleeps on the couch.


End file.
